Below is a list of what I used and where I bought it from. Costing is always difficult; items that I know I’ll probably use in the future (nuts and bolts, etc) I’ll often buy more than I need and, of course, I have some items in the workshop already because of previous projects. I’ve tried to be as fair as I can with pricing. Obviously this list doesn’t include any of the tools I already had or the wear and tear on those tools. I assume if you are even considering this project you’ve already got some tools.
| Item | Supplier and Notes | Cost (£) |
|---|---|---|
| Motor – single phase, 750W | Already owned – can be easily bought from many places, I’d probably use eBay. | 102.00 |
| Frame Timber – 100x47x2400mm | B&Q – expensive and total garbage. I won’t even provide them with a link. I knew it would be garbage but I was in a rush. I think I used four lengths but I had about a metre left over from another job which I also used. | 45.00 |
| Glue – Titebond Original | Already owned – this project uses a fair bit of glue | 4.00 |
| Tensioning Axle – 20mm bright mild steel bar | eBay – you could just use a cut off from the main wheel shaft. This seemed like a better fit though and let me use a smaller lifting eye. | 5.50 |
| Lifting Eye – A4 steel lifting eye M10 x 100 | eBay – this is the eye used to apply tension to the blade. If you can find a forged one with a large enough eye it would be cheaper. The eye size listed is not even close to what you’ll get. M8 is supposed to be 20mm but it’s more like 18mm. In hindsight I should have bought a masonry eye bolt, they are cheaper and easy to get hold of. | 4.39 |
| Threaded Coupling Nuts – M10 | eBay – the tail on the lifting eye isn’t long enough so these are needed to extend it. I bought 10 but only need a couple. | 4.59 |
| Nuts – metric, zinc plated | eBay – I bought a selection pack of 250 for 7.99 as I always need these. I’ll only use a few for this project though. | 2.00 |
| Mild Steel Sheet – 3x500x1000mm | eBay – small amounts are used in a few different places. Could probably be eliminated altogether but it’s cheap enough. I bought far more than I needed for this project. | 28.99 |
| V-Belt – A38 V belt (Dunlop) | Bearing Boys | 2.85 |
| Pillow Blocks – UCP206 Dunlop 30mm | Bearing Boys – 2 of | 25.82 |
| Square Key – 8mm key steel, square | Bearing Boys – will need to be turned into a 8 to 6 mm key | 5.37 |
| Taper Bush – 1610-30 Dunlop | Bearing Boys | 6.45 |
| Large Pulley – SPA170/1 V Pulley Dunlop | Bearing Boys | 17.16 |
| Flange Bearings – SLFE30 LDK Pressed steel flange berings, 30mm | Bearing Boys – 2 of | 31.77 |
| Shaft Collars – CASB30Z 30mm single split shaft collar | Bearing Boys – 2 of | 13.24 |
| Small (Motor) Pulley – SPA085/1 V Pulley Dunlop | Bearing Boys – already owned | 9.71 |
| Taper Bush – 1210-18 Dunlop | Bearing Boys – already owned, buy to fit your motor | 5.29 |
| Break Disk Carrier – Oke heavy duty 30mm disc carrier | Oke Parts – designed to carry the break disc for a kart, made from a single piece of aluminium with a 92mm PCD and 6 mm bolts. This exact item might be tough to get but similar items are easy to fine | 17.50 |
| Axle – 30mm kart axle, solid steel, 6mm keyway both sides | Oke Parts – kart axles are easy to find with keyways milled along the whole length (typically half way each side). They seem to come in 25 or 30mm with 25 being somewhat cheaper. | 56.00 |
| Square Key – 6mm | Oke Parts | 5.00 |
| Total Cost | 392.63 |
There’s significant scope to make this build cheaper. Most DIY bandsaw builds make their own version of flange bearings and use cheaper plain bearings in them. You could also make your own shaft collars. Keys can be replaced with a screw and glue. The disc carrier is a luxury, something similar could be made from wood, the pulleys could also be made from wood.
Overall I could easily see the cost being reduced to £200 maybe even less if you can salvage some parts from other machines. For me this really isn’t about keeping the costs as low as possible though, it is about the experience of building a bandsaw. Don’t forget as well that nearly everything here can be taken off and reused if I want to build something else.